> The difference between liking animals and being into bestiality is categorically different for me, those aren't the same spectrum at all. Like, when I like bestiality stories, it's because of the same 'consent to pain' part, not because I'm just that into animals, those are just completely unrelated.

I see. For me bestiality isn't really about pain. Even when girls take horse dicks inside, it goes more by the "bigger dick -> better" logic with more "pleasant stretching" than outright pain (except in the Act of True Love story, I suppose). For me bestiality is just one of the unordinary activities that is hot to treat like they're ordinary, falling under the casual sex category among such things as casual incest or casually attending school with a vibrator in pussy. And showing a character casually engage in bestiality like it's a natural part of loving animals is by the logic of my fantasy a way to show the extent of her innocence and purity. I was planning to explore it in Slavya and Horse before I abandoned it. When Semyon arrives to the village, first he sees Slavya casually walk around fully naked, then she invites him to the bathhouse with her, then as they cool down in the lake she gives him a naked hug and there is more skinship later. And he thinks: she would do even that without having any dirty thoughts, she's so innocent and pure! And this kind of establishes a pattern that the more extreme things she can do without thinking dirty about it the more innocent and pure she is. The first time Semyon sees Slavya have sex he fails to see how it continues the pattern, but eventually he will. So she's not just innocent and pure enough to give a guy a naked hug with no dirty thoughts, she's even innocent and pure enough to have sex with a guy with no dirty thoughts. And then it's just he next step when she's not just innocent and pure enough to have sex with every guy or girl in the village with no dirty thoughts, but even innocent and pure enough to have sex with animals with no dirty thoughts. A true angel she is.

> And neither Hermione nor Ginny strike me as submissive in any way, so while I could probably appreciate a story where they are JUST masochistic (nothing in canon contradicts this), a story where they also act submissively breaks immersion and annoys me. Does this make any sense?
I guess it also depends on what you count as submissive or as submissive enough to break character, but I see what you mean. I remember seeing a picture, I don't even remember what exactly was happening in it, but it had a vibe of Sakura dominating Tomoyo and I thought: that would have made so much more sense the other way around.

> …and I think I could be into stories where Alisa is a dom, maybe?
And who would she be dominating, Pashka? Maybe all his demonstrative cockiness is just to hide his secret submissive personality! Or more plausibly it's just my cuckolding fetish slipping into the content I make about the two.

Or she could be dominating the space pirates, wouldn't that be fun? There was a story like that by Alephtin, and then one I started inspired by it and never finished…

> I don't want to mix guro/kink with [most of] my favorite characters
Can't say I can relate to that, as, like I said, for me it's just combining two things I love.
The closest sentiment on my side would be how I avoid making guro with Alisa, but that's not because I wouldn't be able to enjoy it, but quite the contrary because I might end up enjoying it too much and become unable to make non-guro hentai with her as my mind would keep slipping into guro instead, just like happened with the Kagamine twins.